Court Rules Homosexual Slurs Were Hate Crime

A man walks into a fast-food restaurant and yells homosexual slurs at a worker while pounding his fist on the counter and wagging his finger. He causes a disturbance that requires police to intervene.

Has he committed a simple act of disorderly conduct? Or was it a more serious offense: a hate crime?

The Illinois 2nd District Appellate Court has ruled that such conduct is, in fact, a hate crime.

The Elgin-based court, in a decision issued last week, upheld the felony hate crime conviction of Kenneth W. Rokicki, 51, of St. Charles, for yelling anti-gay remarks at a 20-year-old employee of a Pizza Hut restaurant in South Elgin in 1995.

Rokicki was sentenced last year to two years' probation and 100 hours of community service in connection with the incident. And he was barred from ever entering a Pizza Hut restaurant.

He argued on appeal that the Illinois hate crime law is unconstitutional and that his conviction constituted a violation of his 1st Amendment right to free speech.

The 2nd District court, which hears appeals from 13 northern Illinois counties with the exception of Cook County, disagreed, saying Rokicki's conduct went beyond the scope of constitutionally protected expression.

"The defendant remains free to believe what he will regarding people who are homosexual, but he may not force his opinions on others by shouting, pounding on a counter and disrupting a lawful business," Judge Susan F. Hutchinson said in the court's 15-page opinion, in which Judges Lawrence D. Inglis and John J. Bowman concurred. "Defendant's conduct exceeded the bounds of spirited debate, and the first amendment does not give him the right to harass or terrorize anyone."

The ruling by the 2nd District is consistent with decisions by appeal's court panels in other jurisdictions.

The Chicago-based 1st District Appellate Court upheld the constitutionality of Illinois' 5-year-old hate crime law in a ruling in 1996. A year later, the Ottawa-based 3rd District Appellate Court validated the law.

The Illinois Supreme Court has not ruled on the constitutionality of the law.

Typically, the Supreme Court would be more likely to take a case when different Appellate Court districts issue conflicting opinions on the same issue. However, the high court can agree to hear any case of its choosing.

A lawyer for Rokicki said Friday he did not know whether his client would attempt an appeal to the Illinois Supreme Court.

Had Rokicki been prosecuted only for simple disorderly conduct, he would have faced a misdemeanor conviction and a fine or maximum of 30 days in jail.

But a hate crime is a Class IV felony, punishable by up to three years in prison.

Rokicki entered the restaurant and erupted angrily when the employee began cutting his pizza, according to the Appellate Court opinion.

He yelled "Mary" "faggot" and "Molly Homemaker" at the employee, and said he didn't want the employee touching his food.

Witnesses during trial testified in previous visits to the restaurant that Rokicki had complained that a homosexual was employed there.

During the October incident, a restaurant manager gave Rokicki his money back and asked him to leave the store.

Rokicki went to the South Elgin Police Department and complained to a sergeant that he was upset because a homosexual was working at the restaurant. He wanted someone "normal" to touch his food, he told the sergeant, according to the appeal's court opinion.

The victim testified that he was frightened for several days after the incident.

"The defendant is not being punished merely because he holds an unpopular view on homosexuality or because he expressed those views loudly or in a passionate manner," the court said. "Defendant was charged with a hate crime because he allowed those beliefs to motivate unreasonable conduct."

"We're at a time now where we're seeing an increase, nationally, in hate crimes," Moltz said. "A statute like this lets people know we're taking these kinds of crimes very, very seriously when they are committed solely out of hatred toward a recognized group."